captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: there were new dire warnings today and more partisan fingerpointing, as the talks over raising the u.s. debt ceiling continued. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the "newshour" tonight, we have the latest on the negotiation, the politics and the proposals aimed at avoiding a government default. >> woodruff: then, we interview deputy secretary of defense william lynn about the pentagon's plans for combatting cyber attacks. >> suarez: gwen ifill examines a new crackdown on multiple purchases of semi-automatic weapons in border states. >> woodruff: we continue our collaboration with "the economist" magazine to highlight the art of filmmaking. tonight: slum dwellers in kenya

resist development projects aimed at helping them. >> suarez: and jeffrey brown talks with historian david mccullough about 19th century artists and thinkers who brought lessons home after living in paris. >> these were people who created the american look. people don't realize to what degree we are affected the french and by french history. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> oil companies make huge profits. >> last year, chevron made a lot of money. >> where does it go? >> every penny and more went into bringing energy to the world. >> the economy is tough right now, everywhere. >> we pumped $21 million into local economies, into small businesses, communities, equipment, materials. >> that money could make a big difference to a lot of people.

>> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the debt ceiling deadlock in washington led to increasingly urgent appeals for action today. but even as talks resumed, white house officials warned not to expect a hallelujah moment. fresh alarms sounded on wall street and around the world today about the consequences of a potential u.s. government default.

standard & poors joined moody's in warning the country's credit rating could be downgraded, if the government tries to pay just the interest on its debt. and china said it hopes the u.s. adopts responsible policies. the chinese hold more than $1 trillion in u.s. debt, more than any other foreign creditor. at a senate hearing, federal reserve chairman ben bernanke-- testifying on the economy for a second day-- said lawmakers should heed the warnings. >> this is a tremendous asset of the united states, the quality and reputation of our treasury securities, and we benefit from it with low interest rates. so i would urge congress to take every step possible to avoid defaulting on the debt or creating even a significantly probability of defaulting on the debt. >> woodruff:: treasury secretary timothy geithner was also at the capitol insisting the deadline to raise the national debt ceiling cannot be pushed past august 2nd.

>> we've looked at all available options and we have no way to give congress more time to solve this problem, and we're running out of time. >> woodruff: but all the admonitions seemed to do little to move the process forward. instead, reports emerged that yesterday's meeting at the white house ended with president obama declaring enough is enough, after a testy exchange with house majority leader eric cantor. today, the senate's democratic majority leader harry reid suggested cantor should no longer be part of the talks. new york senator chuck schumer chimed in. >> and it's time for leader leader cantor has yet to make a constructive contribution to these discussions. more than anything else, he is holding up an agreement at this point. >> woodruff: in turn, the leader of house democrats minority leader nancy pelosi praised the president's demeanor. >> job is no place compared to this president in terms of patience. he doesn't even begin.

>> woodruff: republicans came to the defense of cantor. house speaker john boehner offered him his verbal support, and a literal pat on the back. >> any suggestion that the role that eric has been played in these meetings has been anything less than helpful is just wrong. we are in the foxholes. and i'm going to tell you what: this is not easy. because what we're trying to do here is to solve a problem that has eluded washington for decades. i'm glad eric's there, and those that have other opinions can keep them to theirselves. >> woodruff: back in the senate, republican leader mitch mcconnell sought again to place blame for the stalemate squarely on the president. >> if he and the democrat senate would rather borrow and spend us into oblivion, that's on them. but don't expect any more cover from republicans on it than you got on health care. none. >> woodruff: even amid the public sniping, mcconnell and

reid were said to be working on a fail-safe plan to raise the debt ceiling. the hybrid package would include mcconnell's backup plan to let the president increase the debt ceiling on his own, extending through the 2012 election. it would also add $1.5 trillion in cuts identified in bipartisan talks that were led by vice president biden. it was unclear if house republicans would agree, and at the white house, spokesman jay carney said the president still wants a bigger deal. >> whether it's senator mcconnell's provision or some variation of it, they are not the preferred outcome here. we continue to work as we did yesterday in the meeting and as the president will again today in his meeting with congressional leaders towards something more substantial and significant. >> woodruff: that meeting convened at the white house late this afternoon. for a closer look at both the economics and the politics of this stand-off, we turn to two reporters who are following events closely.

david wessel, economics editor and a columnist for the "wall street journal." and lori montgomery of the "washington post." we thank you both. lori montgomery, we heard that the talks just wrped up about 15 minutes till 6:00. so what do you know about where things stand? >> well, i think where things stand are pretty much where they stood earlier with mitch mcconnell and harry reid trying to develop a fallback strategy in the event that these talks do not lead to a compromise of some sort. i think what was expected at the talks tonight, i have not yet heard a report, was that the two sides were headed towards a final meeting in the morning. and an agreement that it was time to perhaps start looking at other alternatives. >> in other words, they haven't accomplished anything in these discussions? >> well, i'm not sure that's true. i mean the biden talks earlier in the month, the

spring reached -- developed a consensus around a certain package of cuts. and i think that that consensus is forming the basis for you know where this might go as leader reid attempts to add spending cuts to the mcconnell package. so you can't say nothi accomplished. the two parties do seem to be trying to reach some agreement on how to cut spending. >> but when it comes to taxes, no movement? >> well, i think what we're headed towards is democrats saying look, in the biden talks we were willing to discuss some reductions to entitlement programs. but because republicans aren't giving any ground on taxes, we're taking the health care cuts back off the table. >> woodruff: and lori, how do you see the fault lines among republicans? because we've heard speaker boehner saying one thing. we've heard at one point a different thing from eric cantor and then vut mcconnell-- how do you lay that out? >> well, that continues

today. i mean you had boehner open the door pretty wide, i thought, to the mcconnell strategy. he said he didn't know whether it could pass the house but that's what is happening between reid and mcconnell right now to try to sort that out. the basic problem is that senate republicans have a very small default caucus, not very many senate republicans for default. and in the house you've got some people who think default might be okay. and that's what we need to figure out. how big that group is. >> and again on this backup plan, the now hybrid plan, i guess, with mitch mcconnell the republican leader working with harry reid, the democratic leader, what is known about that? does that appear to have traction as you were just saying? >> they're keeping it pretty close to the vest. my understanding is that the momentum is building behind pretty much what you

described. the mcconnell no fingerprints, obama takes the fall, debt limit increase, a package of spending cuts, probably in the 1.5 trillion range. and then perhaps a new fiscal committee, 12 lawmakers aimed at developing a broader debt reduction plan to actually finally solve this problem at some point in the future. >> woodruff: so meanwhile david wessel i'll bring you in. the rating agencies have started to make noises. what is the significance of that? >> on one hand i think it has very little significance. maybe in some obscure country or company people rely on the rating agencies to tell them what's going on. but it's not like the financial markets have any doubt about what is going on in the united states. i do think, though, that it puts pressure on the members of congress. we have a aaa rating where the safest credit in the world. and the rating agents are saying we're getting i-- getting a little nervous, moody's said, for instance,

they think the risk has gone from nothing to diminimus. so as the talks drag on people are saying this little risk is getting a little bigger and bigger and that's making them nervous. >> woodruff: and the business community speaking up in the middle of all this or not. >> right, well the business community has come forward and a nothing of executives organized by the washington business lobby came up and told congress and the president, do your job. i don't think there are any great profiles encouraged. they didn't volunteer to help reduce the deficit, take any tax breaks off the table or anything. but i think they too as we get closer to the moment of deadline are trying to put pressure on the leadership to do the right thing. >> and lori back to you for just a moment on that, is any of this having any bearing on what goes on in these congressional negotiations. >> i think it is. i mean you can sense a growing sense of sort of-- not panic, so much, but urgency and you know, a realization that we only have 19 days to get this done. and republicans in both

chambers really want to have a vote next week on the balanced budget amendment before we move to whatever plan b turns out to be. so we've got another week of debating, you know, stuff that's not solving the problem. so that is led a lot of people, i think, to start behind the scenes trying to figure out exactly what it's going to take. >> woodruff: so david i saw you shaking your head a moment ago when lori was describing this so-called hybrid plan. >> well, i think the disappointing thing is if we come out of this crisis with another commission or a vote on a balanced budget which doesn't tell us anything about where we're going to raise tacks or cut spending, it really has become a missed opportunity. this whole showdown was established by a bunch of people in koch who saw that the debt sealing is a must-must pass piece of legislation and they wanted to use it as a lever to get some significant deficit reduction. there were disagreements about how much spending and taxes.

it looks like we're heading to something that will raise the debt ceiling but it will kick the can down the road which is exactly what people said they didn't want to do. >> woodruff: so is the concern out there about getting that debt ceiling raised which is i guess the bottom line for the rating agencies, for the markets and others or are they also looking as you are saying for some significant attack on the deficit, the debt? >> i think they're looking for both things. the absolute essential is to get the debt ceiling raised so the united states government can pay its bills in august. and the prospect of that not happening frightens everybody. but in the moody's report and what fed chairman ben bernanke said today, they also emphasize that we need to get on as a country with figuring out how to get our budget on a sustainable course. >> and lori montgomerie, that part of their message t sounds like, they are not paying heed to that? >> it's not so much that they're not paying heed to that i think that's why democrats are now looking to attach spending cuts to the

mcconnell plan which initially did nothing to guarantee spending cuts. so they're trying to address that problem. but i think that the brack thing, it's not a commission, it's a committee of lawmakers. and what we're hearing is that it would have a deadline to come up with presumably some targeted amount of savings to stabilize borrowing. and you know, after trying to avoid a process that forces them to vote on a plan like this, you know, and creation of the fiscal commission, on any number of occasions, it sounds like they're finally talking about a process that brings a plan to a vote in both chambers that can't be amended and forced them to make a decision. >> and if that is what happens? >> i think it's interesting because both paul ryan, the house budget committee chairman and tim geithner the treasury secretary two months ago predicted that we would end up in this place. we'll agree on a small amount of cuts, relatively

small, the stuff we can agree on and we'll agree on a target for how much we'll reduce the deficit over the next ten years. and that first part will be a down payment and we'll try and set up some mechanism that will tie the congress's hands and force it to finish the job, probably after 2012. >> and david at this point, how much time before the markets and the folks you're-- you talked to get really concerned? >> it's almost impossible to tell. i think that the politicians in the united states have a luxury here that they don't fully appreciate. which is if you are-- a disaster area, the markets would look at the u.s. and interest rates on u.s. treasuries would be rising. so because, it's almost as if they are counting on europe to be even more dysfunctional than we are. and europe decided to keep their part of the bargain. so despite all this stuff from moody's, the letters from the business round table and the financial services round table and all these business groups, the u.s. government today can still borrow ten year money at less than 3% which is

pretty low. and so until the markets actually raise the interest rate, i think that some members of congress aren't going to take the threat seriously. >> well, we're going to leave it there and watch it very closely as you are. david wessel, lori montgomery, we thank you both. >> you're welcome. >> thanks. >> suarez: still to come on the "newshour," a cyber warfare strategy; new rules for gun sales; the slums of kenya and americans in paris. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: the phone- hacking scandal in britain threatened to spread to the u.s. today. it was widely reported that the f.b.i. is investigating whether a rupert murdoch tabloid in london tried to access voicemails of 9/11 victims. and murdoch defended his handling of the scandal, speaking to "the wall street journal," which he also owns. he said he's just getting annoyed at all the criticism of his company. a federal judge in washington has declared a mistrial just two days into the perjury trial of baseball great roger clemens. the judge acted after prosecutors showed the jury some

evidence that had already been disallowed. clemens is accused of lying to congress when he said he never used steroids. he had nothing to say as he left the courthouse. the judge set a september hearing to decide on holding a new trial. a suicide bomber in afghanistan killed five people today at a memorial service for ahmed wali karzai-- half-brother of the afghan president. the bomber blew himself up at a kandahar mosque where the service was under way. president karzai was not attending. the attack came as a u.n. report said afghan civilian deaths are up 15 percent from a year ago. officials with the u.n. assistance mission in afghanistan blamed 80% of the killings on insurgents. >> this dramatic growth was mainly due to the use of landmine-like pressure plate, improvised explosive devices or i.e.d.s by the anti-government elements. we at unnama documented 1,462 civilian deaths. >> sreenivasan: nato air strikes

-- mainly involving helicopters -- were the leading cause of civilian deaths by international forces. the first american combat forces began leaving afghanistan today as part of a gradual pull-out. army national guard units from iowa boarded a military plane at the bagram airbase terminal. they're among some 1,000 troops set to leave afghanistan this month. last month, president obama announced he is withdrawing 10,000 u.s. troops this year. the remaining 23,000 will leave by september of next year. in india, investigators in mumbai searched for clues in wednesday's triple bombing that killed 17 people and wounded 130 more. others demanded answers to how the city was attacked again, despite stepped-up security. we have a report narrated by john sparks of "independent television news." >> reporter: there was no warning. placed in the streets of mumbai the aftermath of one blast, a few hours later detectives

began their investigation. a series of bombs detonated in rapid succession. this not the work of suicide bombers said the police. these were sophisticated devices triggered by timers. these the first attacks here since gunmen from pakistan laid siege to the city in 2008. the authorities were taken by surprise. nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, although security experts say a domestic group-- the indian mughadeen are prime suspects. few here can see the point of it. "what do we tell our children," said this man. "they think these adults are mad." why kill innocent people? tonight, security has been ramped up across the nation and

the police now better trained and resourced than they were a few years ago, but there are no shortage of targets in a country of 1.2 billion. >> sreenivasan: mumbai is india's financial capital and home to its movie industry as well. u.s. stocks turned lower today after federal reserve chairman ben bernanke played down talk of new stimulus moves. he had said yesterday that the fed was ready to act, if the economy gets worse. today, he emphasized that he expects things to improve, albeit slowly. in response, the dow jones industrial average lost 54 points to close at 12,437. the nasdaq fell 34 points to close at 2,762. leading u.s. food companies have agreed to cut back on marketing junk food to children. general mills, conagra foods, kellogg and others announced new guidelines today. they mandate specific nutritional requirements with less sodium, fat and sugar. the companies have rejected government guidelines that were stricter than the industry standards. those are some of the day's

major stories. now, back to ray. >> suarez: next, the pentagon's newest battle plan for cyber space. after decades preparing for all- out war with the soviets, eventually shifting to counterinsurgency in iraq and afghanistan, the defense department is now gearing up for a new kind of conflict on the digital battlefield. the risk of a cyber attack on government computer networks, power grids and pipelines and commercial interests like financial networks has grown rapidly, as internet usage expands. the u.s. military now records tens of millions of attempts to invade its networks every year. deputy secretary of defense william lynn revealed today that one invasion by an unspecified foreign government led to the theft of 24,000 files of sensitive data in march, from a defense industry computer network.

lynn said the attack underscored the need for the pentagon's new "strategy for operating in cyberspace" released today. among the initiatives it outlines: use new methods to defend the military's vast networks and systems and work with the government and private sectors and international partners to improve security. lynn said the u.s. reserves the right to respond with conventional weapons to a grave cyber attack, but that the strategy's focus lies elsewhere. >> rather than rely on the threat of retaliation alone to deter attacks in cyberspace, we aim to change our adversaries incentives in a more fundamental way. if an attack will not have its intended effect, those who wish us harm will have less reason to target us through cyberspace in the first place. >> suarez: a cyber command was established two years ago, but the pentagon and obama administration have sought to de-emphasize a potential militarization of cybersapce.

there's one reason for that approach that stands out, according to michael hayden, the former director of the national security agency. he spoke with the "newshour's" spencer michels last year. >> there was a survey done not too many months ago. they asked the citizens of some cyber-savvy nations around the world, who do you fear most in the cyber-domain? and, quite interestingly, we were number one. >> suarez: the u.s. does have a reserve of cyber weapons it can use to respond to attacks. some resemble an elaborate computer virus dubbed "stuxnet" that spread in 2010. its targets included centrifuges at iranian nuclear facilities and thousands of the machines were ruined. that attack triggered a warning from the onetime united nations inspector hans blix, who had monitored iraq's weapons program. >> this computer virus that affects centrifuges, that may affect centrifuges, this is a very terrible warning, it is like a new biological warfare inserting viruses into computers.

if it can be in a centrifuge factory, it could be somewhere else very sensitive. >> suarez: there are calls for a more aggressive u.s. approach. marine general james cartwright said today the military will have to do more than simply improve digital defenses, if it hopes to break the cycle of attacks. we go now to deputy defense secretary william lynn. >> welcome. >> thank you. >> suarez: what is the nature of the threat in 2011 that the department of defence had to come up with a strategy to counter? >> well, the threat's growing in two dimensions, ray. first it's moving up a scale of escalation. most of what we see today is exploitation, that's theft, stealing secrets either commercial or military. we've seen some instances where they attack networks and degrade the networks. and there is the possibility, we know the tools exist to destroy things, to destroy physical property, to

destroy networks to destroy data, maybe even take human lives. the same time the threat is moving in a second dimension. right now the most sophisticated nation states are really the sole possessors of so the fist kated cybertools. but over time it's going to migrate to rogue states and it's going to migrate to eventually terrorist groups. at some point will you see a marriage of capability and intent and that is what we should truly worry about. >> suarez: if the department of defence's mission is to protect the united states and its people, how does this strategy protect this country and its people? >> well, the strategy is intended to protect the information technologies that's one critical to our military capabilities. most of our military capabilities rely on information technology to do navigation to do targeting to do command and control, all the basic functions. so in the first instance we're protecting those military capabilities. but we need to go further.

working through the department of homeland security we need to think about how we might use better defensive capabilities to protect our critical infrastructure, the power grid, the transportation network, the financial sector. >> are you committing on-- is the department of defence committing to protecting the internet worldwide? this is a privately owned, privately operated network that's worldwide yet the united states department of defence is setting out to protect it. help me out with that. >> we're not committing to protect the entire internet. we're talking about protecting the military networks in the first instance. we're talking about working with homeland security to protect our critical infrastructure, the sectors i just named and we're talking with our allies about how we have a collective defense that we're working with them to share technologies, to share understandings of the threat so we have a collective defense approach to this important problem. >> sometimes recently attacks have taken the form

of disruption of financial markets. sometimes they've been denial of service attacks meant to disrupt the commerce of the united states. where do you draw the line between malicious criminal activity to something that actually is a security threat? >> well, most of what we are seeing right now has been malicious activity. in some cases it's criminal. in some cases it's espionage. we've seen a few-- and a few cases where it goes above that and degrades networks themselves. it has happened in estonia and georgia a couple of years ago. the impact of those attacks is corrosive it erodes our military advantages by stealing our technology, it erodes our economic advantages by stealing our intellectual property. but over time our fear is that it will go-- the scale of the attacks will rise to the-- they will become truly destructive. >> suarez: the department of defence has assets.

people, tanks, planes, intelligence. and missions where that usually involve places, physical objects, land that needs to be taken, armies that need to be taken out. does the nature of the internet create a front that's not in any particular place that isn't a physical set of objectives? does it require thinking about what security is in a different way? >> it does require thinking in a different way. it's a new domain. it's different than land, sea, air and space and we need to think about what are the characteristics of it. it's largely privately owned. it crosses borders that doesn't respect sovereignty. and the speed at which it moves, a keystrokes on one side of the globe can have an impact on the other in the blink of an eye so we need to take account of all those factors as we look to protect our networks. >> suarez: now if you are's sitting at home listening to our conversation and think oh, now the department of

defence wants to protect that part of our national assets, does that also mean they want to mondayitier it, snoop on it, be a presence on it in a way that might bother me? >> no, we don't want to do that at all. and we don't-- we don't participate in any monitoring, or any scanning of networks in the united states. what we're doing is trying to protect our own military networks and we're trying to work with the appropriate agencies, the fbi with law enforcement, the department of homeland security for protection of critical infrastructure to provide capabilities that might-- that the defense department has that might be used for those critical missions but we don't have the primary role. >> a lot of people are familiar with basic training and what it is, physical endurance, learning new skills, learning how to be a warrior for the united states. does this front, does this new strategy mean that

you'll need different kind of people under your umbrella as well with a new set of skills? >> it absolutely does. and we've gone about hiring those kinds of people. we have set up a cybercommand up at fort mead that's organizing the military effort in this regard. and they're out hiring people, both in uniform and as civilians with those kinds of cyberskills that we need. as you say they're different kinds of skills than we might need with conventional soldiers but they're equally important. >> and where should americans be concerned? where in the world are there hot spots of activity, places where people are organizing or the expertise is concentrating to launch the kind of attacks we've seen in the past couple of years? >> well, i think the fear that you should have here is that the attacks can could come from anywhere. it doesn't take an enormous amount of resources to develop quite toxic tools in the cyberworld. and our fear is that the

kinds of cools that exist today in nations are going to migrate to eventually to terrorist organizations. and they're not going to have any hesitation about striking. >> deputy defense secretary william lynn, thanks for joining us. >> thank you very much. >> woodruff: now, from cyber security to securing the u.s. mexico border. gwen ifill looks at new reporting requirements for gun dealers. >> ifill: in an effort to stem illegal trafficking of firearms across the border with mexico the justice department has announced new rules on gun sales in four southwestern states. gun store owners in arizona, california, new mexico and texas would be required to report any one who buys two or more semiautomatic weapons within a five-day period. it's the obama administration's first gun control initiative and it's been greeted with mixed reaction. evan perez of "the wall

street journal" has been following this story and he joins us now. it seems, evan, like a minor change on the surface but there's been a lot of talk about it. >> right. and it's something that the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms has wanted to do for many years. however they've just never been able to get it-- there's a lot of problems with getting some of this through congress. so what they've decided to do is make this essentially a rule and they're going to send out letters in the next few weeks to about 8500 gun shops along the border states that you mentioned, to essentially create a reporting requirement so they can have some paperwork to find out when someone comes in and buys, say, 5, 10, ak-47 style rifles which, you know, are the type of weapons that the drug cartels in mexico are using to carry out some of the violence. >> ifill: describe specifically what kinds of weapons we're talking about. you say ak-47 style. >> right, they're mostly

like romanian type, romania romanian-made ak-47 style weapons. they are cement eye automatic-- semiautomatic, they're very potent. and essentially they are the favorites of the cartels in mexico. >> ifill: is this a big problem? is there a huge trafficking in these kinds of guns across the border? >> there is. as far as we can tell. the mexican government says you know, there's about 890% of the firearms that they've confiscated and they put it at, you know, 70,000 in recent years, you know, has-- comes from the united states. it's hard to get really hard figures on this. the gao did a report saying there were about 20,000 between 2004 and 2008. and so we know that in mexico it's very hard to buy firearms of any kind. mexican law doesn't allow it. in the u.s. it's very easy to do that. and so it goes to show, you know, that you have a market,

a ready market and a place that is easy to get firearms that you'd have this kind of trade. >> ifill: now there was this project called the fast and furious which is kind of famously, i shouldn't say blew up for the government, but didn't turn out the way it was intended and i weather whether-- bond wler this new rule was intended to speak to that. was there a connection an explain what it is. >> the theory was an investigation in the atf office in phoenix. and it was intended to monitor but not stop certain sales of firearms to people who were suspected to be buying weapons on behalf of smugglers who would then send it over to mexico for, to sell to the car 2e8s. there is a lot of controversy over it because essentially you have people who are suspicious and the atf was standing by and a laing 100s of sales to pursue, to continue without stopping them. and this is obviously now become controversial. it's become the focus of the investigations by members of

congress. now the rule that we're talking about, the requirement for reporting of long gun sales, this was contemplated long before the atf operation. however because it comes at about the same time, there is a lot of suspicion on behalf of people, and you know, that essentially this was atf away to make sure this rule goes forward. and to provide an excuse for adding additional regulation on second amendment rights. >> ifill: set out to prove there was a problem but it didn't necessarily do that because some of these guns walked away. >> a lot of these firearms ended newspaper crime scenes in mexico. the atf didn't have the means to track them and therefore they were used in crimes. and they will be turning up for a decade. >> ifill: this is one of these new government rules that seems to have made nobody happy on either side of the very enduring gun policy divide in this country. why wouldn't the gun control advocates be happy about

this? >> well, they're pleased that the atf is doing something. obama administration has been very reluctant to wid into gun control issues for various reasons, politics mostly, there's a lot of pro gun democrats in congress that were elected in 2006. they were trying to preserve some of those folks. a lot of them lost in 2010. you know, the gun control groups, i think, want more robust regulation. they want more things like, for example, reinstituting the ban on assault weapons which was something from the clinton administration and which is expired. that's not likely to happen given the congress that we have. >> the national rifle association on the other side theoretically. >> correct. and they plan to sue the minute the atf sends out these letters which will again happen in the next couple of weeks. we expect that the first letters will start arriving in gun shops and the nra will go to court and challenge. we say that essentially the atf doesn't have the power, the legal right to do this.

>> only these four states affected by this rule. if i live in minnesota and want to get a 22 calibre long rifle that has a detachable magazine, i can still do that without being tracked. i can buy five or more. >> you can buy 40 and nobody will make a requirement. a lot of gun shops do report suspicious purchases no matter what. >> ifill: anyway. >> anyway. a lot of them because they know that they're afraid that something like this could end up at a crime scene and they don't want to be blamed. they do it anyway but they won't be required to. at one point this was contemplated to it be much wider. and because of concerns inside the administration, they limited it only to, for political reasons they thought this would be more palatable to limit it only to four states. >> ifill: it will be interesting to see if even that survives. evan perez, "the wall street journal", thanks so much. >> thank you. >> suarez: and to another in our series on the art of film- making, produced in collaboration with "the economist" magazine.

tonight's featured documentary is called "good fortune." it was produced by new yorkers landon van soest and jeremy levine. they spent a year and a half in kenya recording a u.n. effort to redevelop a slum in nairobi called kibera. this excerpt focuses on the very different perspectives of silva adhiambo, a midwife who lives in kibera and sara candiracci, the program manager of the u.n. project. >> kibera is very dramatic, it's kind of shocking. the health situations very bad. the sanitation situation is very bad. there are no roads, there is nothing. it's not acceptable that kibera exists. it's not acceptable. i mean-- and i'm so happy that now this project is a successful project.

>> ( translated ): since i came from home, i have seen a big difference in my income. so i am happy to stay in kibera. there's a lot of trash, but life is good. >> ( translated ): my name is francis omondi. i am secretary of the settlement executive committee, which is in charge of the slum upgrading. u.n. habitat has something called millennium development goals. one of the goals of the millennium development is that by the year 2020, they should provide better housing for at

least 100 million living in slums like the one we live in. so the plan is to move people being evicted from here into temporary housing. do you understand? >> ( translated ): this is government land. every time they threaten to build on it, we get worried that we'll lose the only place we can afford to live. >> kenya slum upgrading program

is a joint program. it's a partnership with the government of kenya. and the main purpose is to improve the livelihood of people and the situation of people and the infrastructure of slums. so many institutions, small organizations or big organizations, go in there and do these small projects, but at the end the impact is very low. i mean, you need to go there with a big project, working together with the community, to have a big impact. now, the challenge is a lot of people need to be relocated. and the strategy to move people and to bring them back is still not clear. so i prefer not to-- you know, i can give you my opinion, but maybe it's better if i don't. you know, it's like this, when you work with people, it's not easy, never easy. you know, the infrastructure is the soft work.

the hard work is dealing with people, is dealing with the governments, dealing with the communities, dealing with the all the institutions, all the interests. so it's dealing with people is, like, the hard work. >> ( translated ): can't you see the government is lying to us? we'll be evicted like dogs one day. >> ( translated ): if you're wise, you should find somewhere to move to now. don't count on being given a house and don't think you'll come back here. when you leave, you are gone for good.

>> ( translated ): how much did you say it was? >> ( translated ): that is 5,500. >> ( translated ): and electricity? >> ( translated ): 1,000. plus deposit for the house, 8,500. plus rent 5,500. >> ( translated ): where i'm staying now i pay 700 shillings. there's no way i can afford it, because it's way more than what i've been paying. >> ( translated ): this house is 2,000. the prices are high because of the security here. >> ( translated ): it's like

kenya belongs only to the rich. i'd prefer if those people just let us stay in the slum. >> u.n. habitat is really supporting the deal to build kibera low-cost housing. and we don't do anything without involving the community. >> but the majority of them, maybe, doesn't know a number of things, because they are just within the slum here. so how about if you go and tell them we want to construct houses for you. and then they say we don't want the houses. ( laughter ) will we adopt that? but they should follow what we are advising them, because we are experts in development. >> you realize this is a very contentious issue because it involves removing people from their settlements. and that is why i insist you have educate them, to educate the residents who do not understand that whatever is being done is for the benefit of the residents of this area.

>> ( translated ): you know the upgrading here in kenya is difficult, because what they want is different than what the community wants. now i'm seeing everybody fending for themselves, because there's

nowhere they're taking us. >> suarez: silva adhiambo suffered a stroke after that film was made and can no longer work. since her house has not yet been demolished, she still lives in kibera. the project is moving forward slowly. you can learn about "the economist" film project or submit your own film at film.economist.com. >> woodruff: finally tonight, on this bastille day, the national day in france, jeffrey brown talks with author david mccullough about the french influence on american life dating back to the 19th century. >> brown: through his nine books, the historian david mccullough has been painting a portrait of america from early works on the johnstown flood and the building of the brooklyn bridge to his two pulitzer-prize

winning books on sometimes overlooked presidents-- harry truman and john adams. in his new book, "the greater journey: americans in paris," mccullough turns to the development of american culture. as artists and thinkers such as the painter mary cassatt the future senator and abolitionist charles sumner, who studied at the sorbonne. oliver wendell holmes, sr, then a young medical student and so many others experienced paris in the 19th century. we considered going to paris for the interview, but settled instead for meeting at the lovely bistrot du coin in washington d.c., where i started by asking mccullough why he was drawn to this particular time and place. >> here was this big period between 1830 and 1900 about which very little had been done, filled with wonderful characters, important characters in a variety of fields, who were changed by paris and consequently when they came home

or what they brought home, changed america, changed our story. >> brown: in the first chapter you write: "not all pioneers went west." it's a kind of theme for this book. >> yes, it is. >> brown: in what way were these people pioneers? and what were they seeking? >> well, we talk about pioneers in science or pioneers in medicine and some of them were literally pioneers in medicine because they went there to study. paris was the medical capital of the world. our medical training was woefully behind and this was a chance to perfect their skills and their profession but also to come back and teach what they had learned, which almost all of them did. and the others were pioneers in launching their careers for which there was no training available here. there were no schools of architecture, there were no schools of art, there were no museums where you could go and look at paintings. it's hard to believe that but that's how it was. it was the cultural capital of the world and it was also a way

to find out if they were any good. >> brown: to measure yourself? >> exactly. and to get the training that that knew was essential to be very good. and it worked for some very important people, like mary cassatt, like john singer sargent in painting. it certainly worked for architects. the work of richard morris hunt, who changed the look of much of our urban landscape. h.h. richardson, charles mckim of mckim, mead and white. louis sullivan. these were people who created the american look. >> brown: so it's across a wide range. >> it's across a very wide range. people don't realize to what degree we are affected the french and by french history. >> brown: one of your characters, john sanderson has the line, "the french dine to gratify." i can't resist this since we're sitting in a french restaurant-- "the french dine to gratify, we to appease appetite." so they learned a little something about living well,

too? >> you bet they did. exactly. and it's interesting because the doctors who came back would tell their students and one of them tells his son in a wonderful quotation: "don't just go there to study medicine. go there to study human nature." what it is to be human. and this is an issue in medicine still today. am i treating a disease or am i treating a patient? >> brown: a lot of famous names and people move through this story. was there someone who surprised you or grabbed in a way you hadn't expected? >> yes, several including some who were minor characters but also some major characters. among the majors would be george healey who was a young irish boy from boston, street kid who had talent to draw and paint and who knew no one in france, knew no french, had no money, but he went because he was determined "to be the best i could be", as he said. and i loved his line, he said,

"i had a great stock of courage and of inexperience." he said that's all a big help. and there are now seven healey portraits in our white house. there are 17 healey portraits in the national portrait gallery. he became one of the most prominent portrait painters ever and certainly the most prominent portrait painter of his time. >> brown: you know, the art of finding or digging through archives for material is... is an art? what have you learned after all these years of looking for material? >> i've never been involved with a project where something didn't turn up new, never. >> brown: never? >> never. and you think, "oh, that's been gone over again and again, you aren't going to find anything." oh, yes, you do. and you find it in surprising places. you also have to keep an open mind because often you find it in a person, somebody who has something say.

when i was working on my truman book i interviewed one of his secret service guards and at the end of the interview i thanked him very much, because he really gave me a lot of time and it was infinitely interesting and valuable. and i thanked him and i said, particularly when i think about how many times you must have been asked these questions. he said, "mr. mccullough, i've never been asked these questions." you have to be sure you don't let appearances lead you to wrong conclusions about people and about where things are. >> brown: it's interesting to me that, having looked and written so much about the political development of our country, here you are focusing on the cultural development. was that a conscious thing for you that you wanted to do? >> yes, very much so. i felt for a very long time that history is more than politics and the military and social issues. yes, it is politics and the military and social issues, but

it's also art and music and architecture and ideas and science and medicine. it's the works, it's human. and i think the more that we teach history that way, the more we think about history that way, the more we realize that's obviously true. there are some ancient civilizations, all we know about them is their art. so what may stand down through the next several hundred years may be more george gershwin than it is some senator of the moment. >> brown: i understand that you yourself wanted to be a painter early on studied painting? >> i still do. i paint all the time. >> brown: you do? >> yes, i do. i do indeed and i highly recommend it to everyone. get out there and paint, it's good for the soul. but i also particularly stress to people who say they want to become writers, young people, to take a course in drawing or painting, because it helps you to learn to see, to look and that's what writing is often

about. >> brown: one last thing: this paris of the 19th century you are writing about-- if you had the chance, if a time machine existed and you had a chance to live somewhere else, would you consider paris in this time? >> it would depend for how long. i'd get home sick after a month or so. acutely homesick. and that was true of them, too. they all came home saying "i'm a better patriot now than i ever was." >> brown: feeling themselves a better american? >> yes and proudly so. augustus saint-gaudens, the sculptor, came home and said, "i never realized how much of an american i am until i had my time in paris." >> brown: all right, david mccullough, nice to talk to you. >> thank you very much. >> suarez: again, the major developments of the day: financial leaders and foreign creditors alike appealed for action to end the debt deadlock in washington, but the political

divide appeared deeper than ever. late today, minnesota's democratic governor and republican legislative leaders reached a deal to end a state government shutdown that lasted two weeks. and to hari sreenivasan for what's on the "newshour" online. hari? >> sreenivasan: read the text of the pentagon's cybersecurity policy and find analysis on the rundown blog. ray previews his upcoming series on indonesia and its health challenges, but you won't have all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. ray? >> woodruff: and again to our >> suarez: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm ray suarez. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks, among others. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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